No one wins it all

If you ask me what I detest most, I would probably say, injustice. This is so because; it is something that denies someone of self-actualization. But most often than not, justice is not best sought when one fights. What is due to one can be also sought without protest. The robbery of justice can be most felt when one knows he glaringly should not be denied what is withheld but one can similarly get a relief when he comes to the realization that no one wins it all.

The feeling of injustice would readily recall the feeling for justice. I don’t know if there is any such thing that tastes better than success. Success is so relishing that one may just think it is one’s birth right once one starts getting it. Justice can be similarly so elating because you have been given your rightful due. This is so true for all the good things of life. But I dare to reflect on this that is one due to all the good things always and never to bad things even if one has worked tremendously hard for it? But differently, if one has all good things without any bad does not make for better living? I think even the most assiduous persons are bound to get failures or challenges sometimes. Insofar we are contingent beings, we are bound to get the feeling of the other side of the coin, only then can we appreciate the face of the coin we have often had and seen. NO one wins it all.

A pretty good illustration to describe this and which will help us analyze the point in case is the storyline given in Alpacino’s Devil’s Advocate. In that classic mafia movie, there was a young successful Lawyer; Lomax who was hired by a big firm to be its legal defendant. The very reason he was hired was because he never lost any case in his over ten years of practicing. He was immersed in success and never lost even the most unlikely cases. But there came once a case which he was handling and he knew he was defending the cause of his company even though he knew he wasn’t on the right. Taking a recess after a particular session, he had to withdraw from the case and that was his first loss. The point was later revealed, that behind the numerous successes was the fact that a Godfather was interested in him for the making of the Devil’s advocate. His success was later revealed to be the antic of the Godfather. When he realized this, he opted to recline from this machination, but was quickly reminded that: ‘no one wins it all’.

In winning we are exposed to what it takes to become successful. We would certainly get many admirers and accolades. In winning, we become very often appropriative. We are more likely to fan our embers and massage our ego. We think that our merits have won us such wreath. Winning comes most often as a result of hard work, but hard work is not often a necessary condition for winning. Ultimately, any success and win is the oeuvre of the Grand artist, God. HE alone permits success according to how one could manage it. Success is very often functional. That is, it plays a particular role or point on the part of the recipient. It could play the role of exalting the bringer of success, help to strengthen the will of the recipient to appreciate the ultimate Bringer of success, it could serve as a medium to edify a community or serve some other remote purposes within the time frame of reception, the recipient, or the community in which the recipient lives. Thus, success is very instructive and does not come in isolation.

Success or winning should not often be perceived as something to make us arrogant because that would be misappropriating the essence of success. Once success strikes in us pride, then, we are having failure lurking around. This temptation often comes in because we often fall into the temptation of thinking success is the brainchild of ability and capability and even seeks to measure accomplishment. True this is to an extent, but not always. Any success or wining which is built on the foundation of success, once it experiences a whiff of failure may not be able to stand properly again. This is so because, it has been misleading built on the belief that one’s effort had been the prompts for it. Success I here would admit that can propel more success. The time one wins, the more he would want to win. So, winning is as contagious as any other virtue. No one would want to leave the acme of success to the nadir of failure. But only with the right perspective can one keep being on the pinnacle of winning. The more challenge is not in winning but in maintaining a win. This point brings us to the ambit of failure. Only failure can make us appreciate success and this is where we can talk of failure as also functional and not all bad.

Failure is in itself negative and so no one would wants to associate with it. But if we realize that failure plays an active role in realize success, then we can begin to appreciate the function of failure. Although failure is bad, but if there is no failure, we would not have been able to recognize success. Success has a function of making one humble. So when one is faced with failure, it gives him an opportunity to make a rethink about his plans and to re-strategize. For every man who fails once, he has the opportunity to see why he has fallen and then that like dialectics becomes a new thesis while in itself is an antithesis. This is the precise background of once bitten twice shy. Once a person has failed, he then has the impetus to forestall failure.

I do not have problem with failing. The problem I have is failing again. Failing once should be instructive enough and then it should help one attain success once longed for. I also think it is good for one to fail once and that is the only time success can be better appreciated and relished at that. History is decorated who stood on the platform of failure to attain success. Abraham Lincolm is the most common example invoked. From his profile, he was never deterred by the failures that punctuated his history. When one fails, he can be said to be lying down and when one is lying down what he does is generally thinking. This is the soul of success; activated thinking. No truly successful person has avoided failures or dramatic setbacks.

Be that as it may, failure should not mar belief in our potentials and powers even our goals. We must know that we all are in a period of self actualization. We are always becoming and so, we must know that the best is yet to come in life, come what may. In becoming, there is a character that can only be consistent with such a realization. For any person to be truly successful, he must be focused on the goal of action. He must have moral courage and the spirit of perseverance. We must be firm and resolute. We must be able to command a situation. It was US historian, Barbara Tuchman who in The March of Folly said: “The power to command frequently causes failure to think. The synopsis of our reflection is: never be afraid to fail, for then know success is in the offing but never aim at failure. Know too, no one wins it all, for in life we win some or lose some. No one wins it all and no one loses it all.

IKHIANOSIME, Frankl